


All the Roads We Have to Walk are Winding

by Sena



Series: All The Roads [2]
Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, Coming Out, Coming of Age, First Love, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-01
Updated: 2011-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-24 05:56:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sena/pseuds/Sena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Spencer thinks he might be in love and that having someone to have sex with on a regular basis is awesome. He also learns that Christmas sucks and families tend to implode around the holidays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Roads We Have to Walk are Winding

Christmas vacation is the best invention in the history of ever. There's no school, Brent's at his grandparents' in Pahrump so there's no band practice. Spencer gets to spend almost every hour alone with Brendon, and even though Brendon still has work, he comes home smelling of fruit every day.

"You smell like pineapples," Spencer says, crowding Brendon against the kitchen counter.

"I smell like smoothies and ass," Brendon tells him. He looks tired.

Spencer kisses him over and over again. "You look tired."

Brendon sags in Spencer's arms, rests his weight against Spencer's chest and presses his face to Spencer's throat.

"Come to bed," says Spencer.

"I should shower. I smell so bad. Laura spilled an entire blender's worth of Hawaiian Breeze on me, which is probably why you're smelling pineapple. I just smell sour."

Spencer rubs Brendon's back, holds him close and rubs his face against the top of Brendon's head. His hair smells like pineapples and sweat and skin. Brendon slides his hands beneath Spencer's sweatshirt, and his fingers are icy cold against Spencer's back.

"You're half frozen," Spencer says, kissing the top of Brendon's head. He thinks about telling Brendon that he needs to get the heater in his car fixed, but he knows Brendon can't afford it, so he just says, "Come on, let's get you into a hot shower."

Being naked with Brendon is always hot, but the shower's not about sex. Spencer gets to touch a lot of wet, naked skin as he soaps up Brendon's body, and he loves the way Brendon always makes soft, pleased sounds and melts against him when Spencer massages shampoo into his scalp. They make out for a while and they're both obviously turned on, but it's more of a warm undercurrent of arousal than a desperate need to get off.

"I'm going to sleep for a hundred years," Brendon says as he bundles himself into bed. "Are you coming in?"

Spencer shakes his head and reaches out to smooth Brendon's wet hair off his forehead. "I'm going to make dinner. What do you want?"

"Anything. Only it has to stay hot for a hundred years because I'm going to be asleep until then."

"Okay," says Spencer. He's already wearing flannel sleep pants and a t-shirt, but he reaches for his sweatshirt and pulls it on to keep the heat from the shower in against his body. Brendon's eyes are closed and he looks completely relaxed. Spencer wonders if it's weird to love Brendon's dark eyelashes as much as he does.

"Are you watching me sleep?" Brendon asks a few minutes later.

"I can't watch you sleep if you're not asleep," Spencer tells him.

Brendon's eyes flutter open and he gives Spencer a sleepy smile. "I don't mind."

Spencer makes chili for dinner, and when it's done he just covers it and takes it off the burner, knowing it'll stay warm and the flavors will only get better the longer it sits. Then he crawls into bed next to a sleeping Brendon, curls up against him and slides his hand beneath Brendon's t-shirt to rest on his belly. He doesn't mean to fall asleep, but he does. When he wakes, they've both shifted position, spooned up together, Spencer's front tight against Brendon's back.

It takes him a little while to realize that Brendon's awake, too. He gives Brendon a squeeze and Brendon lazily strokes Spencer's arm up and down. He says, "My dad came by work today."

Spencer says, "Oh." He doesn't know what else to say.

"He asked if I was ready to come home."

Spencer closes his eyes. He knows it's what Brendon's been waiting for since he moved out. He knows Brendon deserves to move back in with his parents, to work less, to not worry about money all the time. He knows it's a good thing, but it hurts, too. They won't be able to be together as much if Brendon moves back home. And if Brendon's not alone anymore, Spencer's not even sure if he'll want to be together at all.

"When are you moving?" Spencer asks softly. He hopes they'll at least have Christmas and New Year's together. He's always wanted someone to kiss at midnight on New Year's Eve.

"I'm not," Brendon says.

"But--"

"I know. It's tempting. I can't lie and say it's not tempting. But the terms are the same as they've always been. I'd have to give up music, go back to the church, and forget going away for college. I'll have to live with them and go to UNLV for a few years before they trust me enough to even let me go as far as BYU." He sighs. "It's not worth it."

Spencer's so relieved, it makes him feel guilty.

Brendon scoots down a little bit and turns his head back for a kiss. His mouth opens wet against Spencer's, and it's not long before he's wriggling around and straddling Spencer's lap. Brendon likes to make out while he rubs their cocks together, and Spencer is always down with that plan. He shivers a little from the cold when he peels off his clothes, but then Brendon's over him again, naked and so hard.

Spencer had introduced him to lube, and he always keeps a bottle of it by his bed to jerk off with. That's another thing Brendon likes to do, jerk off while Spencer watches him.

Brendon drizzles lube over Spencer's dick and strokes it, gets it slick and wet, then takes both of them in his hand and starts to rock his hips. Spencer likes to wrap one leg around Brendon's hips to pull him closer, and as he does, Brendon slips down and his cock rubs against Spencer hole, and Spencer moans.

Brendon whimpers softly, then says, "Is this okay?" as he keeps rubbing his cock there, between Spencer's cheeks, up to press beneath his balls.

"Feels good," Spencer tells him. He runs his hands over Brendon's shoulders. He says, "You know that you can always, Brendon, if you ever want to, you know that you can, right?"

Brendon says, "Oh, God," and drops down to kiss Spencer again, jerking his hips short and fast. He kisses Spencer hard and bruising, the way he used to kiss when they first started, the way he still does when he's desperate and close.

Brendon's come splashes up over Spencer's balls, his cock, and he can feel it running down between his legs. He wants to rub Brendon's come into his skin, use it to slick the way as he fingers himself, but he doesn't. He just thinks about it and doesn't even try to make himself last.

Brendon curls up next to him, after, the way he always does. He whispers, "You'd really let me do that?"

Spencer closes his eyes. It's always easier to talk when he doesn't have to look at the person he's talking to. He says, "I want you to do it." He clears his throat. "I want you to fuck me."

"But I thought you were waiting. I thought I wasn't ready."

Spencer opens his eyes at that. "How does that even make sense? Why would I be the one to decide whether or not you're ready?"

"Because you know what you're doing. I thought maybe I had to learn more before I could level up. I don't know. I just thought since you were the one taking the lead, I'd just let you decide when we could do other stuff."

Spencer says, "We're both pretty dumb."

When they're eating chili and watching stupid reruns on TV, Brendon says. "So, um, what's on the table?"

Spencer almost actually looks at Brendon's kitchen table before he realizes that Brendon's being metaphorical. "Everything," he says. "I mean, if you want to use a staple gun on my nipples, I'm going to say no, but." He shrugs. "Pretty much anything you want."

Brendon takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He says, "Wow. That's just. Wow. But that's maybe not, I mean. There's a lot of kinky stuff in my head."

Spencer grins at him and says. "Really."

When they're washing the dishes or, well, when Spencer's washing the dishes and Brendon's sitting on the counter watching him and drinking a glass of chocolate milk, Brendon says. "Wait, no, okay. Like anything? But what if it's really weird? Like, what if I wanted you to lick my asshole or something?"

Spencer blushes, but he manages to keep his voice steady when he says. "I'd do that. It's called rimming. It feels really good."

"Wow," says Brendon. "So you, um, you're a fan of things in and around your ass?"

"That's one way to put it."

"And it's not like. I mean. I don't know how to put this without sounding totally gross, but there's the whole issue of, um..."

"Shit," says Spencer.

"Yes. There's that whole issue."

"You just make sure you're clean," Spencer says. "Go to the bathroom. Take a shower."

Brendon nods and drinks his milk. He says, "Do I make weird noises?"

Spencer laughs and turns to look at him. "What?"

"Well, we're talking about it, now, so I'm just going to ask. I think sometimes I make weird noises."

Spencer smiles. "I like the sounds you make."

"You're not just saying that?"

"No." He turns back to the dishes. "I think it's sexy, the way you sound. Do you think I make weird noises?"

"No, but you know what you're doing."

"Not really."

"But you've had experience."

Spencer shrugs. "Actually, I've had sex with you way more times than I have with anybody else combined."

"Huh," says Brendon. "Cool." He reaches for a bag of tortilla chips and eats a few before saying, "I'm not moving home, but they want me to come back for Christmas. So. I'm probably going to do that. I don't know if I should let them think I'm coming back or just tell them the truth."

"They have to get used to the truth eventually," Spencer says.

Brendon nods and eats some more chips. He always bites off the pointy corners first. Spencer thinks it's kind of adorable.

*********

Spencer gets home around two, and his father's sitting in the kitchen with a mostly empty mug of hot chocolate, looking grim.

"What's wrong?" Spencer asks.

"It's two o'clock in the morning."

Spencer looks at the clock on the microwave and says, "And?"

"And it's two o'clock in the morning. You've never had a curfew because we've never had any reason to give you one, but I think that has to change."

"It's Christmas break," says Spencer. "And I was just over at Brendon's. And you could have just called me."

"Have you been drinking?"

"What? No. You know I don't drink."

"I know you and Ryan promised you wouldn't drink when you were in grade school. And I know things change."

"I haven't been drinking," Spencer says. "Or smoking. Or doing drugs."

His father nods. "You having sex?"

Spencer freezes.

"Because you don't come home unless it's to sleep or eat, and most times you don't even eat here. If you're slipping away all the time to see a girl." He sighs wearily. "Just be careful, all right? And bring her by so your mother can meet her. You know she'd like that."

"It's kind of complicated." Spencer chews on his lower lip and considers telling the truth for a half second.

"Hell," says his father. "It's not that Kaitlyn girl, is it?"

"No," Spencer says. "No, God, I wouldn't ever, I mean, for like a million reasons, but Ryan's girlfriend? No."

"Okay," his father says. "That's good. Hell. This talk was a lot easier when you were a kid and all I had to tell you about were bodies."

"We don't have to have this talk," Spencer says.

Spencer's father says, "Sit."

Spencer sits at the kitchen table and stares down at his hands and listens to his father tell him about being gentle with women, about being respectful and caring and not doing anything stupid like cheating on them or telling his friends about what goes on in the bedroom.

His dad talks for nearly fifteen minutes, then asks, "You have any questions for me?"

Spencer has a million questions. _How do you know when you're in love? Is it actually possible to get addicted to sex? Because it's fucking awesome and I think I might be addicted. How do you know if somebody's in love with you? How come I sometimes think women are really beautiful even though I'm not attracted to them? Why could I tell complete strangers that I wanted them to fuck me but I was too shy to tell Brendon?_

Spencer says, "No. I'm good."

His father says, "You can talk to me, all right? If you ever do have questions."

Spencer says, "Okay. Um. Can I go now?"

"Yes. And tomorrow morning, you're going to ask your mother if you can go into the office with her."

"It's Christmas break," says Spencer weakly.

"You haven't spent one full hour in your mother's company in all the days you've been off school, and that hurts her. So you're going to spend time with her tomorrow and you're going to enjoy it."

Spencer sighs and says, "Fine."

**********

Spencer wants to go over to Brendon's right away since he doesn't have to work until six. Spencer thinks they could probably squeeze in a lot of sex before then. He wants to go over to Brendon's but he doesn't. He makes himself get up before his mom leaves for work, and when he's sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast he says, "You going into the office today?"

"Just for a little while," she says.

"Can I come?"

"There won't be much filing to do."

"I don't care. And maybe we can grab lunch or something."

She smiles at him, pleased, and says, "I'd like that."

He sends a text to Brendon on the way to the office. _have to spend today with my mom DDDDD: when do you work tomorrow?_

 _working a double tomorrow, but come over tonight if you can_

A couple minutes later he gets, _im making a list of all the cool sex stuff I want to try_.

Spencer leans his head against the minivan's passenger side window and wishes he wasn't trapped in a car with his mother. Getting turned on with his mom an arm's length away is so awkward.

Thankfully, Dr. Frankel isn't in. Spencer always feels like she's looking at his skin and judging his cleansing habits. Not that she's all bad; all the free tubes of Retin-A his mom brings home come in really handy sometimes.

Spencer sits in one of the swivel chairs behind the receptionist's desk and spins first one way, then the other as his mom checks the office's answering machine. He listens to her record a new outgoing message saying that the office will be closed until January third and if there's an emergency, they should call 911.

Spencer wonders what the hell a dermatological emergency would look like, so he asks his mother if she knows.

His mother laughs and says, "You're making me dizzy. Go ride around in one of the wheelchairs if you can't sit still."

Spencer actually loves riding around in the wheelchairs after hours. He props open the door between the waiting room and the office so he's got more room to maneuver, then uses the chairs in the waiting room as an obstacle course. Spencer's pretty good at tight turns. He's not as good as the people who actually race wheelchairs, but they've got special chairs with tilted wheels. And gloves. And they can't just get up and walk when their arms get tired.

He's halfway around his makeshift racetrack when his phone beeps. The message from Brendon says, _thinking about you_. Spencer opens the picture along with it, expecting it to be Brendon making a stupid face.

Spencer takes a very deep breath.

The picture is of Brendon, though his face isn't visible. It's a shot of Brendon's body from thigh to ribs, cock hard against his belly, one hand splayed across his bare hip. Spencer takes another slow breath and looks up at where his mother is typing something on the computer. She's not paying any attention to him at all, and that's good.

Spencer wheels the chair out of the waiting room and down the hall past the front desk. He heads as far back into the office as he can, towards the single occupancy bathroom in the back. He licks his palm to make it slick as soon as he's inside and fumbles his pants open with his other hand.

He stares at the picture of Brendon's pale belly and hard cock and thinks about Brendon touching himself and he comes so hard, so fast, he has to sit down on the bathroom floor and catch his breath.

He's still a little dizzy when he calls Brendon. He rests his head against the wall and tucks his phone between his shoulder and his ear as he rubs his come into his stomach.

"Hey," Brendon says in a low, breathy voice. "So, um, you're not calling to tell me I just freaked you out with that picture, are you?"

"Fuck, no," Spencer tells him. "That's, like, my favorite picture in the entire world."

Brendon makes a soft, pleased noise, then his breath hitches.

"Are you still jerking off?" Spencer asks. Impossibly, his softening cock gives a little twitch of interest.

"Yeah. I'm trying to see how long I can hold off."

"How long so far?"

"I don't know. Forever. Like, forty-five minutes? I have to just stop. I can't even hold my cock when I get close, I have to just stop and, like, put my hands over my head and breathe."

Spencer says, "God, I wish I was there to watch."

"If you were here watching, no way I'd last forty-five minutes. Do you...God. When you look at me, Spence. When I know you're watching me, it so fucking hot. I'm thinking about, I know you said you'd do it, but if you don't that's okay. Just. I saw it in a porn, once, this girl was licking the guy's asshole, and fuck, Spence, I think about that so much."

Spencer closes his eyes and whispers, "If I was there right now, that's what I'd be doing to you."

"How soon can you get here? I think. I think I can hold off. I can wait until you get here."

Spencer groans. His cock is hard again, though almost too sensitive to touch. "I can't," he says. "I'm stuck with my mom all day, probably until you're already at work."

Brendon laughs humorlessly. "I can't wait that long. I can't. Fuck. I think if I try to wait that long, if I don't come before work, if I wait until after, I think I might go crazy."

"You don't have to wait. I'm listening to you right now. Tell me what else you're thinking about. You're thinking about me licking you open, but what else?"

"Your fingers inside me. Do you ever do that? I do, sometimes. Sometimes I do that, and I imagine that it's you. Would you do that? You'd put your fingers in me?"

"Yes," Spencer breathes. He wraps his hand around his cock and it's so sensitive that he has to bite his lower lip to keep from groaning. He squeezes it rhythmically, says, "I'm going to start out by licking you, getting you so relaxed and open, getting you so fucking wet."

Brendon grunts and Spencer can tell by the way that he's breathing that he's jerking off and he's close.

"Slide my fingers inside you, stretch you, fuck you slow, until you're so fucking close, suck your cock while I'm stretching you, fitting two fingers inside, three, getting you so fucking relaxed and ready for me."

Brendon whines high in his throat, then grunts again and Spencer knows he's coming. "Fuck," Brendon whispers weakly. "Spencer, fuck."

"Talk to me," Spencer says. "I'm so close right now. Talk to me."

"I don't know what to say. Spencer. Spencer, God, I want everything. I want to, like, set aside an entire week when we don't have to leave the house ever, when we can just do everything we've ever thought about. Even if it's weird, whatever you want, you can do anything you want to me."

The sound of Brendon's voice gets Spencer off more than the words. He squeezes his cock with one hand, pulls on his balls with the other, thinks about Brendon fingering himself while he jerks off, and Spencer comes all over his stomach, this close to too much.

"I love napping after jerking off," Brendon tells him, voice sleepy soft.

Spencer's jealous, but he says, "Sweet dreams," before hanging up. He'd love to take a little nap, too, but he can't. He pulls himself up off the floor and wipes come off his belly and hand. He wets a couple paper towels with water and a touch of hand soap and cleans up. There's sweat along his hairline and on his upper lip, so he splashes water on his face and wipes it away. Thankfully he only got a little come on his underwear, and he rubs at it with another paper towel before doing up his pants.

He looks at himself in the mirror. He's a little pink, still, but he thinks it's not totally obvious that he just jerked off or anything. He takes a deep breath, then another one. He wipes stray drops of water off the counter around the sink and makes sure the bathroom looks clean and unused before he opens the door and sticks his head out. He can hear his mother's voice, but her words are indistinct. He climbs back into the wheelchair and slowly rolls himself towards her desk.

"...of course, Barbara," his mother is saying when he gets close enough to understand her. "Absolutely. I'll fax that right over."

When Spencer rolls up into her line of sight, she covers the mouthpiece with her hand and says, "Will you fax the papers coming out of the printer over to the Spring Valley clinic?"

Spencer does, and then he files a few things, and then he rolls the wheelchair around the waiting room for what feels like ever until his mother finally says, "You want to go get lunch somewhere?" Spencer opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, she says, " _Not_ Del Taco. Or Capriotti's. Real food."

"I was going to say Olive Garden," he says, even though he wasn't.

It's her favorite restaurant, so she smiles and him and says, "Smart boy."

Spencer actually likes Olive Garden, too. He thinks maybe they lace their salad with some sort of crack that makes people crave it.

"Do you have any last minute shopping you need to do?" his mom asks after they order. "The mall's probably crazy, but we could brave it."

"Nah, I've got all my presents," he says. He got his dad a set of personalized grill tools, his sisters are both getting DVDs, and he and the twins had gone in together to get his mom a gold circle necklace with everybody in the family's birthstones in it. Ryan's super easy to buy for since he just makes a list of the things he wants and tells Spencer to pick from it; this year he's getting a gift certificate to Border's.

He wonders if he should get something else for Brendon. He wonders if maybe he should take Brendon out to eat, like, on a date. He wonders if that would be weird.

He thinks he'd like it. They'd probably have to go someplace on the east side of town so nobody from school saw them, but there are lots of cool places they could go. He's sure he could find someplace romantic.

When the soup and salad come, Spencer mostly just pushes his salad around on his plate. He doesn't know how he's even supposed to be able to tell if Brendon would want to do something romantic with him, something that wasn't having sex.

"Spencer James," his mother says playfully, "you're acting like you're being punished." Then her face falls. She says. "Oh. Your father. He told you to ask if you could come with me today, didn't he? And spending time with me, that's as bad as a punishment, isn't it?"

"No," Spencer says. "Mom, God, no."

"Well, you look miserable. You look miserable having to sit here and eat lunch with your own mother."

"It's not," he says. "I like spending time with you. You know that."

"You never spend time with me anymore."

"I'm just busy," he says. "I've got a lot on my mind."

"You're too young to have a lot on your mind."

"Yeah, well." He shrugs. He dips his breadstick in his soup but doesn't eat it. He stares down at his soup and says, "How do you know if you're in love? Like, if you just think that you're in love, is that it? How do you really know?"

His mother says, "Oh, sweetheart."

"Not like. I'm not asking for me, or anything. Just in general. It's just something I've been wondering."

"Well," she says. "There are a lot of things that add up to tell you when you're in love. If you can't stop thinking about her. If you find her weird little habits endearing instead of annoying. If when you think about the future, you always imagine her in it. If you care about her happiness more than most anything else. If you can't wait to spend time with her. All those little things add up, and you know."

Spencer nods and says, "Yeah. Okay."

"You can tell me about her, you know. I might be able to help you figure it out."

"No," Spencer says. "No, there's not a girl or anything. I really was just wondering."

His mother has a sly smile and she doesn't look at all convinced, but she doesn't press.

On the drive home, Spencer stares out the window and doesn't even make fun of his mom for listening to Jon Secada. They're almost in their neighborhood when he asks, "What if I thought I might be in love with a guy?"

His mother had been singing along to _Just Another Day_ , but she goes completely silent. It's a terrible kind of silence; Spencer can feel it pressing into him, suffocating him.

He says, "Mom?"

She doesn't say anything at all. She takes a deep breath and grips the steering wheel tight and stares straight ahead. Finally she pulls the van into the driveway and puts it in park. She doesn't turn it off, though, and neither one of them gets out.

Spencer says, "Mom."

"You're not," she says.

He sighs.

"You're young," she tells him. "It's easy to get confused. At your age, everything in your head is all jumbled and messy. But you'll sort it out. And you'll realize that you're not."

Spencer knows that's not true, but he doesn't argue with her. He just says, "Okay."

When they get inside, his mother says, "We've got dinner tonight with the Franklins. I need to go freshen up."

And Spencer wants to believe that she's just getting freshened up, but after she locks herself in the bathroom, he can hear her crying.

**********

Brendon gets off work at ten, so Spencer sits on the steps in front of his apartment complex and waits. It's nearly eleven by the time Brendon shows up, his puffy red jacket easy to spot even from the parking lot.

"I didn't know you were coming over," Brendon tells him. He pulls out his phone and checks it. "I didn't get any texts, but you know it eats half of them."

"I didn't text," Spencer tells him. "Or call. I just. Is it okay that I'm here?"

"Yeah," Brendon says. He holds out his hand to help Spencer to his feet. "Of course it is. I invited you here, I just didn't know you were actually coming. Are you okay?"

"No," Spencer admits, then turns and heads up the stairs.

"What happened?" Brendon asks once they're inside out of the biting cold. "You look frozen. How long were you sitting out there?"

"Just a little while. I had a really bad day, and I don't want to talk about it. I just. I need to not think anymore. I need you to make me not think anymore."

Brendon moves forward and says, "Okay."

When Brendon starts to press his cock inside, Spencer buries his face in the pillow and groans.

Brendon stills. "Am I hurting you?"

Spencer says, "No," even though it aches. It's been so long since he's been fucked, and he didn't bother to tell Brendon to stretch him open first. He says, "Don't stop."

Brendon presses inside so slow, slower than Spencer thought he'd be capable of. He circles his hips and kisses the back of Spencer's neck and says, "Tell me it's okay."

"It's so good," Spencer breathes. "Come on. Move."

"You're sure I'm not hurting you?"

"Brendon, it feels so fucking good. Please. Fuck me."

Brendon keeps his thrusts slow and shallow, and Spencer feels like he's going out of his mind. He wants tell Brendon to just fuck him, goddamn it. Wants to tell Brendon to make him feel it. But then Brendon stretches out with his entire weight over Spencer's body, pinning him down, and it's perfect. Brendon's inside of him, covering him, sliding in so slow and so good, and he slides his hand over to where Spencer's gripping the sheets and twines their fingers together. Spencer knows, suddenly, that they're not just fucking, and his eyes start to burn.

He doesn't know why he's crying. It feels so good and the endorphins are pumping through him and it's exactly what he wanted. It's all he wants. Nothing else matters except for their bodies moving together, Brendon kissing the back of his neck and gasping out Spencer's name.

"Fuck," Brendon says once they're curled around each other, sweating and sticky and still breathing hard. "Spence, you said it was okay."

Spencer presses his face to Brendon's shoulder. "It was."

"I hurt you."

"You didn't hurt me."

"Am I...was it that bad?"

Spencer lifts his head up and kisses Brendon hard, even though he can't stop crying, even though he's starting to shake. He says, "It was amazing. I think that's maybe why I'm. I've never cried after sex before, but I'm okay."

Brendon makes a soft, worried hum, but he doesn't argue, and he holds Spencer while he cries.

Brendon falls asleep first, the way he usually does, and Spencer looks at him and thinks, _I'm in love with you._

In the morning, Spencer wakes up with Brendon draped over him, hard cock already pressing against Spencer's hip. Spencer shifts so he can kiss Brendon's forehead, and he thinks it again, thinks, _I'm in love with you,_ but he doesn't have any desire to say it out loud. He just wants to cradle the secret close to himself for now, wants to keep it safe.

Brendon pushes himself up and looks at his alarm clock, then drops his head. "I don't want to go to work," he groans.

"So don't."

Brendon laughs and rolls his eyes and gets out of bed. Spencer joins him in the shower and he's expecting that they'll soap each other up and jerk off together. He's not expecting Brendon to sink to his knees and go down on him.

Spencer presses his back against the cold tile wall and moves the showerhead out of the way so Brendon doesn't drown or anything, and it's sloppy and Brendon uses too much teeth, but it's still so hot. He can't look away, has to watch his cock sliding between Brendon's lips, doesn't even want to blink. And then Brendon opens his eyes and looks up at Spencer with his huge brown eyes and Spencer manages to pull away just in time to shoot his load all over Brendon's neck and shoulders.

Brendon stands and kisses him hard and rubs himself off against Spencer's hip, and then they have to soap up all over again.

"You'd tell me if something was wrong, right?" Brendon asks as they kiss just inside his front door. Brendon's hand is still on the doorknob, but he doesn't open it.

"Everything's fine," Spencer lies.

"Because I'm going to be at my parents' for a while, and my family's huge and crazy, but that doesn't mean you can't call me or come over or whatever. Just, like, show up if you have to, okay?"

Spencer kisses Brendon one last time. "You don't want to be late for work."

**********

When he gets home, his father's just leaving. He says, "Spencer. A text message saying you're spending the night at Brendon's isn't the same thing as asking for permission to spend the night at Brendon's."

Spencer says, "Am I grounded?"

"No. But only because it's two days until Christmas. Think of it as a miracle. And spend some time with your mother."

That's the last thing Spencer thinks he should do. He wishes Brendon wasn't working a double. He wonders if it would be weird if he went back and spent the day at Brendon's apartment alone. He'd be alone for days, though, since Brendon's spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with his family.

He calls Ryan, "What are you doing?"

"Is anybody dead?" Ryan asks.

"What?"

"You're calling me at eight o'clock in the morning, which means somebody's dead."

"Nobody's dead."

"Then I'm going back to sleep."

Spencer says, "Wait."

Ryan's silent for a moment. "What's up?"

"Nothing. Go back to sleep."

"Spencer."

"Seriously, go back to sleep. I'll talk to you later."

Spencer thumbs through his contact list, but he doesn't really have anyone else he can call.

His mother's making breakfast and he can smell bacon. He sits down at the table, where his sisters are arguing heatedly about something that happened on The Ashlee Simpson Show.

His mother gives one of his sisters a gentle rap on the head and says, "Not so early in the morning, girls," and sets two plates of bacon and eggs in front of them. She comes back with toast and a plate of food for Spencer, but she doesn't look at him and she doesn't say a word.

Spencer eats the bacon and half of his eggs. Everything sits heavy in his stomach. When his sisters start telling him about all the different kinds of cookies they're going to make that day, Spencer asks if they want any help.

"No, we'll be fine just us girls," his mother says, and she's still not looking at him.

Spencer says, "Okay," and grabs his keys and just drives.

He ends up in their practice space. He hasn't played in over a week, so after an hour his back and shoulders are aching and his hands are sore and starting to blister but he doesn't stop. He doesn't stop until his shirt is soaked through with sweat and his hands are starting to bleed and his muscles are screaming.

He cracks open a bottle of water and checks his phone. He has a text from Ryan. _im at ur house where r u?_

 _practicing_

Ryan shows up twenty minutes later. He says, "What is going on at your house, oh my God. Your mom has totally morphed into a psychotically perky Martha Stewart clone and she got all weird when I asked her where you were."

"She kind of hates me right now," Spencer tells him.

"Why? What did you do?"

"Told her the truth."

"Oh," Ryan says. He hugs Spencer tight, then pulls back and looks down at Spencer's sweat staining his shirt. "Gross."

"Yeah. If I could go over to your place and shower, that would be awesome."

The only clean clothes Spencer has at Ryan's house are a pair of old basketball shorts and a ratty t-shirt. He doesn't care, though, because it feels so good to be clean and he's riding a post-drumming high so intense he can barely feel the pain in his hands.

Spencer sits on the couch and flips through the channels while Ryan sits on the floor in front of the coffee table and wraps his Christmas presents. There are blue glass Moroccan lanterns for his mother, some sort of hunting gear for his father, and a copy of _On The Road_.

"Who's that for?" Spencer asks as Ryan carefully cuts the wrapping paper in a perfectly straight line.

"Brendon. He said he's never read it. I think he'll like it."

"He will."

"What did you get him?"

"Oil painting of a kitten in a fez."

Ryan frowns. "That's. Well."

"I got his acoustic guitar out of hock," Spencer says. "I didn't know what else to get him."

"You didn't really get him an oil painting of a kitten in a fez?"

"No, I just made that up. That would be awesome, though, right?"

Ryan says, "Your taste in art is terrifying."

Spencer wonders if he's too old to learn how to paint. He's never really shown any artistic talent before, but he'd be willing to work at it if he could make things like kittens in fezzes and zombie grizzly bears.

It's the opposite of the way things usually are. Usually, Ryan's the one hanging out at Spencer's because he doesn't want to go home.

And Spencer really doesn't want to go home, but Ryan's planning on spending the night at Kaitlyn's and wants to be gone before his dad gets off work at six.

"You can just crash in my room," Ryan offers. "He won't even know you're there."

"No," Spencer says. "It's okay."

He drives around his neighborhood for a while, sees one of the parks full of kids playing a massive game of kick the can. He smiles when he realizes that he can easily pick out Jackie and Crystal's laughs and screams from the other kids'. He thinks about joining them, but he doesn't want to be that high school creeper honing in on middle school kids' games.

His house is completely silent and he doesn't bother calling out to see who's there. He's planning on just locking his door and putting on his headphones and blasting his music so loud he loses a little bit of hearing.

When he gets upstairs, though, he sees his bedroom door open, light spilling into the hallway, and when he gets to the door he sees his mother standing inside.

She's gone through everything. His dresser drawers are open and his clothes are hanging over the sides. There are books she's rifled through on the ground, on his chair, on his desk. His closet is wide open and everything inside it is a jumble. She's even stripped the sheets off his bed, and the mattress has been shoved back at the wrong angle.

"What the hell?" Spencer demands. He's going to say more, he's going to start yelling, but he doesn't. He doesn't because his mother is staring at his laptop. And in the side of his laptop is the flash drive he'd had taped to the underside of one of his desk drawers. The flash drive where Spencer keeps all of his porn.

And of course she hadn't clicked on a nice, normal one. Of course she hadn't clicked on the soft-focus European twink porn or the nervous, laughing amateurs making their own homemade movies, no. No, the movie playing on Spencer's laptop is a raunchy gangbang, one skinny kid on a bare mattress getting fucked by a dozen butch leather daddies, ass and mouth full of cock at the same time, already covered in jizz.

One of the men onscreen says, "Yeah, take it like the dirty fucking whore you are. Fucking gag on my cock, you little bitch, fucking take it--"

Spencer steps forward and slams the laptop closed. He takes a deep breath, says, "Mom, I..." He has no idea what to say.

She says, "Don't talk to me," and leaves the room.

Spencer stands in the middle of his room with his arms wrapped around his waist for a long time. Then he starts to clean. He puts his books back onto his bookshelf, folds his clothes and puts them back in the proper drawers. He avoids his desk, doesn't even want to touch the laptop.

He knows he's crying, but he tries to ignore it. He doesn't want to feel sad or angry or embarrassed or ashamed. He doesn't want to feel anything, so he pushes it away as hard as he can and focuses on picking up all the clothes she'd yanked off his hangers.

"It looks like a bomb went off in here," says his father.

Spencer nods and doesn't say anything. His father's tie is loose, nearly undone, and Spencer wonders what it's like to have to wear a tie every day. He wonders if you ever get used to it.

"Spencer," his father says, coming into his room. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Spencer tells him. "Everything's fine."

His dad wipes the tears off his cheek and says, "Talk to me, kiddo."

Spencer shakes his head. He doesn't have anything to say.

"Why'd you do this?"

"I didn't. She did."

"Mom?"

Spencer nods.

"What happened?"

"Nothing." He sits down on his mattress, then has to correct his balance because it's half off the box spring. He shoves it back into place and sits down again.

"This doesn't look like nothing," his father says.

Spencer looks down at his hands and shrugs. His blisters are going to be amazing calluses in a couple of days.

"I'm going to go talk to your mother. Don't go anywhere."

Spencer says, "Okay," and pushes himself back across the mattress until his spine is against the wall.

The fight starts small. Spencer doesn't even notice it at first, doesn't even notice it until the raised voices become shouts, until he can hear his father screaming, "Somebody needs to tell me what the hell is going on," and his mother screaming back, "I'm not going to say it, I can't say it, I'm never talking about it, it makes me sick."

Their voices fade after ten minutes. Spencer can hear his mother crying again. He can hear the twins banging through the front door, laughing and talking excitedly, making a ridiculous amount of noise in the kitchen.

Spencer doesn't look up when he sees his father appear out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm at a loss right now," his dad says.

Spencer takes a deep breath.

"Spence," his father says softly. "You've got to help me out, here. Your mother and I have never fought like this, not in twenty-five years."

"Awesome," Spencer says, pulling his knees to his chest. He wishes he could make himself tiny, could make himself disappear.

"Whatever's going on, whatever happened, we can work through it as a family. I know we can, but you have to talk to me. You have to tell me what she won't."

Spencer closes his eyes and shakes his head. "I can't."

"You can. You have no idea what's going through my head right now, Spence. Every worst-case scenario is playing out on the big screen, but none of them are so bad that she wouldn't tell me about them. You're not sick. You're not using drugs. God, Spencer. That girl, the one you've been seeing, did you...hurt her?"

"There is no girl," Spencer tells him. "There's never been a girl, Dad. There's never going to be a girl, not unless the twins end up being gay, too."

His father falls silent. Then he laughs. He laughs and rubs his hands over his face and says, "Is that all? You didn't kill anybody?"

"God, Dad. No." Spencer tugs at a loose thread on the cuff of his jeans. "Do you hate me, too?"

His father sits down next to him on the bare mattress and puts his arm around Spencer's shoulders. "No. I love you. And your mom loves you."

Spencer shakes his head. "She doesn't. Not anymore."

"She does. She always will."

Spencer feels silly doing it. He's seventeen years old, after all. But still, he leans into his father's touch and cries and lets himself believe that his dad is going to make everything okay.

**********

The next day doesn't feel like Christmas Eve. Spencer wakes up feeling like it's just any other stupid, normal day. Usually they'd go over to his grandparents' house, but they're on a cruise in the Bahamas.

He puts off going downstairs for as long as he can, until his stomach starts to ache because he hasn't eaten since breakfast the day before. He's quiet as he heads downstairs, tries to listen for his mother's voice before he enters the kitchen.

The kitchen is empty, and Spencer eats two bowls of cereal as fast as he can, then turns to head back upstairs. He's going to just lock himself in his room, but his sisters see him walking past their door and they pull him in and make him help them pick out what they're going to wear to the skating party they're going to later in the day.

They model various coats and scarves and mittens for him, and they insist on doing a ridiculous catwalk strut in the empty space between their beds that makes all three of them laugh.

"I don't know," Spencer says. "How am I supposed to know what girls wear to skating parties?"

"Well, we want to coordinate," says Crystal, "but we don't want to be too matchy matchy."

"I remember when you'd only wear identical outfits," Spencer says.

Jackie rolls her eyes.

Crystal ends up wearing her hot pink pea coat with matching pink and sequined striped hat, scarf, and gloves. Jackie wears a soft green quilted jacket with ivory fleece gloves and a hat, plus a hot pink, purple, and green striped scarf. They run off to show their mother, then come back rolling their eyes because, "Ugh, Mom's totally on the rag or something today."

Spencer sees them off when one of their friend's moms comes to pick them up in a minivan already teeming with middle school girls. He makes sure they have their phones and enough cash to pay for their tickets to the skating rink and any snacks they might want. Then he goes back up to his room and waits.

It takes less than an hour after they leave for what Spencer's been dreading all day to happen. His father knocks on his bedroom door and says, "Come downstairs. We should talk."

Spencer's mother is sitting on the couch in the family room. Spencer's father sits next to her. Spencer sits in one of the recliners, but he's too nervous to actually lean back. He sits on the edge of the cushion and folds his hands in his lap.

"So, you're gay," his father says.

"He's _confused_ ," his mother snaps.

"Ginger. Please."

"You're too young," she says to Spencer. "You're confused."

Spencer stares down at his hands and says, "I'm not confused."

"Somebody hurt you," she says. "Somebody made you think this way."

"Nobody hurt me, mom. I didn't get molested and I didn't get brainwashed. I didn't just decide to be gay because of something I saw on TV or online. And I'm not confused. I've had a really long time to think about this."

"How long?" his father asks.

Spencer says, "I don't know. Fifth grade. Maybe sixth. It wasn't anything I realized right away, but that's when I started putting the pieces together."

His father sighs and rubs his hands over his face and says, "And you're dating?"

Spencer's mother says, "I won't just sit here and listen to this."

"He's our son."

"No, he's not. I don't know who this person is, this stranger, but I want him to go and I want Spencer to come back."

Spencer feels like he's going to throw up.

"Hell, Ginger. He's the same Spencer he's always been. Do you think I'm over the moon about this? But just because I don't know what the hell is going on doesn't mean I'm not going to try."

Spencer's mother gets up and as she leaves the room, she says, "I can't even bear to look at him."

"Jesus Christ," says Spencer's dad. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "She doesn't mean it."

"She does," Spencer whispers.

"She doesn't. I've known her a lot longer than you have. She's scared, and when she's scared she gets mean, but I've never seen her take it out on one of you kids before. Can't say I like it much. And I meant what I said before. I don't get this, Spence, but I'm going to try."

Spencer nods. He doesn't want to start crying, so he doesn't say anything.

"You're dating other boys," his father says. "Just one, or is it...I don't know how it works."

"Just the one," Spencer tells him. His dad doesn't need to know anything else.

"Is he older, or...?"

"My age," Spencer says. "He's a senior, too."

"You kids get any flack at school?"

Spencer shakes his head. "Nobody knows."

"Okay. Maybe. It might be best if you kept it that way."

Spencer doesn't disagree.

"Your mom was raised really Catholic, Spencer. You know how conservative Nana and Papa are."

Spencer nods. When his grandparents come to visit from Colorado, the entire family has to pretend that they go to Mass every week.

"Even though she rejects most of it, there's still a lot of it there inside her and sometimes it comes out. But she'll think about it, and she'll get over her kneejerk reaction, and she'll come around."

Spencer wants to believe him. Spencer wants to believe that his mom is still the same mostly-rational weirdo he's known his entire life. He wants to believe that he didn't break something between them forever when he told the truth, but he doesn't.

"I'm going to go talk to her," his father says, and he pauses on his way out of the room to rest his hand on the top of Spencer's head. "You're a good kid," he tells Spencer, and Spencer nods and closes his eyes.

It's Christmas Eve, and they usually have spaghetti for dinner, but the kitchen is empty and clean. Spencer pulls out his mom's largest frying pan and preheats it while he gets out all the ingredients for sauce. He browns a couple pounds of hamburger, first, then drains it and transfers it to a large saucepan. Then he browns onions and garlic, adds them to the saucepan along with cans of tomato paste and tomato sauce and diced tomatoes and rich beef broth.

He's chopping the bell peppers when he hears a car pull into the driveway. He hears his sisters' voices yelling thank yous and goodbyes, then they're storming into the house laughing and talking over each other.

"Spaghetti!" Crystal cries, snatching a slice of green pepper off the cutting board and popping it into her mouth. "I'm _starving_."

"Then have a snack. The sauce has to cook for a couple more hours."

Crystal sighs wearily but she digs through the fridge and finds string cheese and an apple. "Jackie totally biffed it tonight," she says.

"My butt's going to be totally bruised," Jackie agrees. "Ice skating's stupid."

"Your face is stupid. Can we make ambrosia to go with the spaghetti?"

"Probably," Spencer says. "I think we've got all the ingredients."

"Pistachio salad," Jackie says, pulling a box of pudding mix out of the pantry.

Spencer finishes chopping all the vegetables while his sisters argue over which salad they're going to make, even though they're basically the same thing. While he's measuring out pinches of salt and oregano and cracked black pepper, they decide they'll just make both.

Spencer lets the sauce reach a boil, then he stirs it and turns the heat down low and puts a lid on the pan. He lays out loaves of garlic bread on a baking sheet to thaw. Jackie and Crystal have raided the pantry and are each happily stirring together coconut flakes and mini-marshmallows and whipped topping and canned fruit.

Spencer's thinking about what kind of tossed salad he should make when he hears his parents' voices loud and angry from upstairs. He takes a deep breath. They must not have heard the twins come home, and he doesn't know if he should go upstairs and tell them or just try to ignore it.

Their father's voice carries perfectly as he shouts, "Because we're a fucking family, God damn it! And it's fucking Christmas Eve!"

His mother shouts back, "I don't give a damn what day it is!"

The girls both freeze.

"Come on," Spencer says to them. "Get your coats. We're going for ice cream."

"It's freezing outside," Crystal says.

"Then we'll go for hot chocolate. Fuck. I don't know. Just get your coats, okay?"

Crystal giggles at Spencer's use of the word "fuck." Jackie remains silent and her face is drawn. She puts on her coat and her boots, but when Crystal starts talking about whether she wants regular hot chocolate or peppermint hot chocolate, Jackie doesn't even chime in.

The Starbucks is packed and there's no hope of getting a table. Instead they get three grande peppermint hot chocolates and sit in the car, Jackie quiet and hunched in the back seat, Crystal riding up front. Spencer guesses he could drive them around to look at Christmas lights, so he does.

"Are they getting a divorce?" Jackie asks softly as they drive by houses drenched in lights.

"No," says Crystal. She looks from Jackie to Spencer. "They're not, right?"

"They're not getting a divorce," Spencer tells them. "They're not even fighting."

"They were screaming at each other," Jackie says, and she sounds close to tears.

"They're not mad at each other. They're mad at me."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"Then why are they mad?"

Spencer sighs.

"Spencer, why are they mad?" Crystal demands.

"Because I'm practically flunking out of school and I don't even care, I stay out too late, I'm never at home, and I have a boyfriend."

"Crystal has a girlfriend," says Jackie.

Spencer snorts hot chocolate out of his nose and has to pull over to the side of the road to recover.

"She's not my girlfriend girlfriend," Crystal says as Spencer pinches the bridge of his nose in a futile attempt to stop his sinuses from burning. "We don't make out or anything. And we still date boys."

"You _date_?" Spencer asks.

"Duh," says Crystal.

"I swear to God, if this is like that Dateline NBC where they talked about how middle schoolers are all going to blow job parties and shit, I'm going to murder every guy in your grade."

"Gross," says Jackie. "Only sluts give oral."

Spencer rests his head on the steering wheel and breathes.

His phone rings, and he digs it out of his pocket and answers. "Hello?"

"Where are you?" his father asks.

"I took the girls to get hot chocolate and now we're driving around looking at Christmas lights."

"Oh. Okay."

Spencer thinks about asking, _Is it safe to come home?_ but he doesn't want to upset the girls. Not that there seems to be much of a chance of that.

"Things got a little out of hand tonight," his father says, "but they've calmed down. Everything's fine."

Spencer doesn't think that's true, but he says, "Okay. We're probably going to drive around for a little bit longer."

"Be careful," says his father. "I love you."

"You, too," Spencer tells him.

Crystal plays with the radio until she finds a station playing Christmas songs, Jackie sits in the back seat sipping her hot chocolate, and Spencer drives.

"Why are they so butthurt over it?" Crystal asks, gazing out the window and clutching her hot chocolate to her chest.

"Hmm?" Spencer asks. "Oh. I don't know. Mom won't even talk to me. Dad seems okay with it so far, but I think." He tries to decide how much to tell them. "I think maybe she's never going to be okay with it."

"She's so old sometimes," Crystal says. "Everybody's bi now. She needs to get over it."

Jackie says, "Who's your boyfriend? Do we know him?"

Crystal rolls her eyes. "It's Ryan. Obviously."

Spencer laughs. "It's not Ryan. It's Brendon."

"Do you guys make out?" Crystal asks.

"I'm not having this conversation with you."

Jackie says, "That means yes."

Crystal sighs and looks back out the window. "I've never made out with anybody. Jackie made out with Nate Perkins last month."

"I did not!"

"Did too! You said!"

"I _kissed_ him. One time."

Spencer asks, "Who is this Nate Perkins, and am I going to have to show up at his house with a shotgun?"

"He's just a guy," Jackie says. "We were playing seven minutes in heaven, and I got paired up with him. We didn't even make out or anything. He kissed me one time, and then we mostly just talked about _Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi_."

"I like Nate Perkins," Spencer says. "Nate Perkins can live."

They get home a couple hours later, and his mother is just taking the garlic bread out of the oven and there's cooked spaghetti in a large bowl covered with Spencer's sauce and grated parmesan.

"Set the table," his mom tells the girls.

Spencer's afraid to ask, but he does anyway. "Anything I can do to help?"

She shakes her head. He can tell she's been crying. She reaches out for him, but her hand stills in midair. She drops it back to her side and says, "I don't want this life for you, Spencer."

He doesn't know what to say to that, so he opens the silverware drawer and helps the girls set the table.

**********

Spencer wakes up in the middle of the night and realizes that somebody's climbing into bed with him. He scoots further towards the wall and says, "Hey."

"Christmas fucking sucks," Ryan says. "Families suck. My dad sucks most of all."

Spencer means to say something snarky, but what comes out is, "My mom hates me."

"She does not," says Ryan.

Spencer takes a deep breath, then another one. He should just go back to sleep. He should just go back to sleep and forget about it, but he can't. It's all he can think about, and he doesn't have anyone else to talk to, so he says, "She hates me. She really hates me and I hate her, too."

They curl together beneath the covers the same way they have since they were kids. Ryan usually sleeps on the air mattress now that they're older, but they sometimes still share Spencer's bed. Ryan doesn't exactly hug Spencer as he starts to cry, but he rubs Spencer's shoulders and says soft, comforting words. Sometimes Spencer forgets how good at taking care of people Ryan is when he wants to be.

He tells Ryan everything, tells him about his mom ripping his room apart and finding his porn, tells him about his parents fighting and the things his mother had said. He hears it over and over in his head, the way she'd said _I can't even bear to look at him,_ like he wasn't even there in the room, like he wasn't even human.

"We should run away," says Ryan. He's been saying it for years. He always says it like he's kidding, but Spencer's always known that deep down, Ryan means it.

"Where would we go?" Spencer asks.

"Anywhere. Anywhere that's not here. New York."

"Too crowded."

"Los Angeles."

"Too close to Vegas."

"Chicago."

Spencer says, "Chicago."

"We can get shitty jobs and live in a studio apartment. Well, no. I don't want to live in a studio apartment with you and Brendon. We can live in a one bedroom apartment."

"Do Brendon and I get the bedroom?"

"If we're being realistic about things, you and Brendon are going to be the only two making enough money to pay rent, so yes."

Spencer grabs a tissue from the box on his desk and blows his nose. He says, "There's a good music scene in Chicago."

"We'll have crappy jobs and play shows in dive bars and basements and we'll live in a tiny little apartment and we'll have to bang on the radiators in the winter because they'll never be putting off enough heat. Why do people bang on radiators, anyway? How does that make them work?"

"I always thought they were just doing it to get the attention of whoever was in charge of turning up the heat."

"Hmm," says Ryan. "I'm going to have to look that up."

They fall asleep deciding what kinds of crappy jobs they're going to get. They decide that Ryan's going to be the worst secretary ever and Spencer's going to work at Jiffy Lube and Brendon's going to have to learn mime so he can stand on busy street corners and annoy people.

Spencer's phone goes off at five o'clock in the morning.

"Oh, my God," he says.

"Merry Christmas!" says Brendon. He's obviously very awake.

"It's five o'clock in the morning."

"It's five o'clock on _Christmas_ morning," Brendon says. "But nobody in my entire family is awake, yet."

"It's early," says Spencer.

"Don't you get up early to look at all your presents?"

Spencer groans. He actually has always gotten up early to look at his presents before, but he's just not feeling very Christmassy.

"You should come over so I can give you your Christmas present."

Spencer's not sure he wants to go over to Brendon's parents' house. They hadn't liked him even before Brendon had moved out; he's sure their opinion of him hasn't changed. He says, "Later. When are you going to go back to your place?"

"I don't know," Brendon says. "Maybe not for a few days. I could come over to your house."

"Really bad idea," says Spencer.

Ryan says, "Jesus fucking Christ it's the ass crack of dawn shut up."

Spencer crawls over him and tells Brendon, "Hold on, I'm gonna go downstairs." He tucks his phone between his ear and his shoulder and grabs a blanket to wrap around himself, ignoring Ryan's protests. Once he gets downstairs into the kitchen he says, "Okay. Sorry. Ryan's over, and he's really cranky this early."

"Why can't I come over to your house?" Brendon asks softly.

Spencer sighs.

Brendon says, "Are you breaking up with me?"

"What? No!"

"Because you haven't called or texted me, like, at all."

"Things are a little crazy right now."

"And you where angry when I saw you the last time, and then you were sad, and I thought maybe you were sad because you knew it was the last time. Like, maybe you're just waiting until the holidays are over before you let me down gently."

Spencer says, "I'm not breaking up with you. I'm in love with you, you fucking moron."

Brendon whispers, "Oh."

Spencer grabs his keys off the hall table and heads outside without even putting shoes on. He's in his pajamas with a blanket wrapped around him for a coat, and he doesn't even care. He says, "I'm coming to pick you up. Ten minutes."

Brendon says, "I'll be waiting."

Brendon's sitting on the steps leading to his parents' front porch when Spencer pulls up. He was smart enough to put on clothes and a coat and a stocking cap. When he climbs into Spencer's car, he says, "Say that thing you said before."

"You're a moron," says Spencer.

Brendon grins at him, happy and bright, and he grabs the back of Spencer's neck and pulls him in for a kiss.

"Should we really be making out in your parents' driveway on Christmas morning?" Spencer asks, though he doesn't pull away.

Brendon laughs against his mouth. "What are they going to do? Disown me twice?"

Brendon's mouth is sugary sweet. He's obviously been eating candy canes. Spencer sucks on his lower lip for a while, then presses his tongue into Brendon's mouth to lick at the tastes of peppermint and sugar.

Brendon says, "So, if you want to just start driving, giving you road head is totally on the list of things I want to try."

"I think that's way too advanced for both of us," Spencer says, but backs out of the Urie's driveway anyway, and takes off without any specific destination in mind.

Brendon plays with Spencer's hair as he drives. He says, "So, okay, you think I'm a moron and that's fucking awesome because I totally think you're a moron, too."

Spencer bites his lip and smiles.

"But something's wrong."

Nothing Spencer says out loud can make it more real than it already is. He says, "I came out to my parents."

"Oh, shit," says Brendon. "They're pissed?"

"My dad's okay," Spencer says. "He says he doesn't get it but he's going to try to understand, so, you know, best case scenario there."

"And your mom?"

"Worst case scenario," Spencer tells him.

Brendon sighs and strokes Spencer's hair. He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't have to. Spencer knows he understands.

"Are you having fun being back home?"

Brendon twists his fingers through the hair at the nape of Spencer's neck. Spencer closes his eyes for a moment before he remembers that he's driving and he can't just enjoy the way it feels.

"I missed them," Brendon says after a while. "And I didn't. It's...I'm just going along with the God thing because it's Christmas and I don't want to be an asshole, but. It's hard to ignore now that I've had so much time where I didn't have to ignore it. It's like trying to ignore fingernails on a chalkboard just to make your parents happy."

Brendon's fingers twist a little harder in his hair, and Spencer gasps.

"Sorry," Brendon says, pulling his hand away. "I forgot how much you hate that."

"Really didn't hate it," Spencer admits. He doesn't take his eyes off the road, like if he doesn't look at Brendon, Brendon won't be able to see him blushing.

"Oh," says Brendon. "That's. Kind of awesome."

Spencer rolls his eyes.

"That totally fits in with some of the things on my sex list. Like, um, sensation things. Hair pulling or tickling or, um, spanking or whatever. It's a pretty long list."

"You actually wrote out a sex list?"

"Yeah. I left it at my place, though, since I might actually die if my mom found it."

"My mom found my porn," Spencer says.

"Oh, shit. Your real porn or your decoy porn?"

"What the hell is decoy porn?"

"You know. The Victoria's Secret catalog you put under your mattress because you know your mom's going to look there. And then she thinks she's found your contraband so she doesn't keep looking and find the real shit. And then you just have to have a very serious conversation with your father about avoiding temptation instead of a very serious conversation with your father about where the hell you got a hold of a magazine called _Bound and Gagged_."

Spencer swallows hard. "So. Um. Is that what you're into? Like, bondage and stuff?"

"I don't know," Brendon admits. "I think it's hot to look at. I don't know if I actually want to be tied up and gagged in real life or anything, but thinking about it is hot. Is that weird? Did I just freak you out?"

"No," Spencer says. "I, um. The porn my mom found was kind of a bondage gangbang?" He doesn't know why he makes it sound like a question, since the porn his mom found was definitely a bondage gangbang.

"Is that what _you're_ into?"

"I don't think so. But it's a really hot video. Or it was, until I saw my mother watching it."

"She watched it?"

"I walked into my room and she had it playing on my laptop."

"Jesus Christ," says Brendon. "So, not your decoy porn."

"Well, it didn't occur to me to plant decoy porn."

"Your family is way too healthy for you to have to think of something like that," Brendon tells him. "My family, on the other hand, taught me at an early age that if I wanted to stay out of trouble, I had to engage in extensive subterfuge. Turn in here. I want to give you your present."

Tree Top Park is deserted, which makes sense; it's Christmas morning and the sun won't be up for another hour. Spencer says, "I didn't bring your present with me."

Brendon says, "That's okay," and when Spencer puts the car in park, Brendon tips his seat back as far as it will go. "Do you think making out would work better up here or in the back seat?"

Spencer laughs. "Is a make out session my present?"

"Well, one of two. I'm thinking backseat."

Spencer agrees. They fumble into the backseat, laughing, and Spencer only gets Brendon's knee in his ribs once.

They huddle beneath the blanket in the dark of Spencer's car kissing hurried and frantic. At first Spencer's worried that they'll be discovered as soon as the sun comes up, but then he realizes that neither one of them is going to make it that long. They barely make it until Brendon's fly is undone and Spencer's pajama pants are tugged down to his thighs. Their mouths are still mostly pressed together, but they're not kissing so much as just breathing the same air. Spencer's running his thumb back and forth over the slit the way Brendon likes, and Brendon's jerking Spencer with quick, short strokes, and soon they're both coming hard, groaning and knocking their teeth together.

"Best Christmas present ever," Spencer says, wiping his hand on the blanket.

Brendon laughs and nods and curls up against him.

"We can't fall asleep," Spencer warns.

"I'll set the alarm on my phone."

Once the alarm's set, Spencer lets himself relax and card his fingers through Brendon's thick hair. He says, "Ryan thinks we should run away to Chicago."

"Mmm," Brendon says lazily, nuzzling against Spencer's throat. "It snows in Chicago, doesn't it?"

"I think it snows a lot."

"I like snow. I like snowball fights. We can run away to Chicago and have snowball fights."

Spencer doesn't particularly like snow, but he likes it when Brendon's happy, so he says, "We'll have the best snowball fights ever."

Usually, Spencer looks at the freckles scattered across the bridge of Brendon's nose or at his dark eyelashes against his cheeks, but he can't see any of that. The closest streetlights are too far away to illuminate even the shape of Brendon in the dark. All Spencer can hear is the quiet hum of the car engine and the sound of their slowing breaths.

Spencer touches Brendon's skin, works his hand beneath Brendon's jacket and his sweater and touches the soft skin of his belly and the wiry hair leading down from his navel. He touches Brendon's neck and runs his fingers over Brendon's face and smiles when Brendon nips at his thumb.

Brendon says, "I'm not ready to tell my family about this."

"Okay."

"It's not that I'm ashamed of you. I'm not, not at all. I kind of want to tell everybody I meet about you. At work, I never get tired of saying things like, 'My boyfriend says...' And that's dorky, I know."

"It's not dorky," Spencer says. He tries to imagine saying that at school. He tries to imagine just dropping it into conversation. _Oh, yeah, my boyfriend has that same shirt,_ or whatever. The thought's scary but thrilling.

"Things are so fucked between us right now. I'm walking on eggshells around them and they're walking on eggshells around me and I don't think it's the right time."

"It's probably not," says Spencer. "If I'd known then what I know now, I never would have said anything."

Brendon pulls him into a tight hug and twines his fingers through Spencer's hair. He tugs gently. Spencer bites at his jaw, then nuzzles it, instead. It's so early, and he hasn't had coffee or anything, and he's close to falling asleep as they make out slow and lazy.

Brendon's alarm goes off at six-fifteen. The sky is starting to change from black to gray, sunrise just starting to hint at its arrival.

"I'm dreading going back," Spencer admits as they climb into the front seat. Spencer leaves the blanket in a heap on the floor in the back; he'll have to wait until everybody's gone before he brings it into the house and figures out how to clean all the jizz off it.

"I'm kind of looking forward to it," Brendon says, looking out the window. "But I get why you're not. I'm not trying to rub it in or anything."

"You're allowed to want to see your family."

"I have a brand new baby niece I've never even seen before," Brendon tells him. "She's amazing. I spent, like, three hours last night holding her. Normally everybody would complain and say I had to share, but they totally let me hog all of her attention since it was our first time ever meeting."

Spencer's never even held a baby once, let alone for three hours. He says, "Didn't she cry or squirm or anything?"

"Well, yeah, but whatever. You just change them or feed them and they stop. Or they don't. Sometimes they just cry."

"You know a lot about babies," Spencer says. It's never something he's thought about Brendon before.

"Not a lot," Brendon says. "I've just got a lot of cousins and nieces and nephews and stuff. And kids are awesome. It's like, even when they're just born, right away, they've already got their own personalities." He laughs when Spencer turns on his headlights. "Dude, we totally fogged up all the windows. And also, sex in a parked car is totally one of the things I wanted to try, so score! Crossing that one off the list."

Spencer turns up the heater and watches as the fog on the inside of the windows starts to slowly clear.

"Hey," says Brendon. He shifts around, digs in his pocket for a while until he pulls out his keys. "I want you to have this. Just in case."

Spencer watches as Brendon wiggles and twists his apartment key off his keychain.

"You need that to get into your place," Spencer says.

"I know. Just. In case you need it. And if you don't, I'll just come pick it up before I head back. But if you need to get away or whatever." He presses it into Spencer's palm, then reaches up to stroke Spencer's hair. "Everything's going to be okay," he whispers.

Spencer closes his eyes and lets Brendon kiss him and tries to believe.

************

"You have to stop," Spencer says as Ryan eats yet another marshmallow Santa.

"Can't stop," Ryan says from his spot on the floor. The carnage of Christmas morning is all around him, empty boxes and crumpled wrapping paper and pieces of ribbon. He pulls another marshmallow Santa out of his stocking and starts to unwrap it.

"Seriously. Every year you eat candy until you're sick and you make me promise that I'll make you stop next year, and every year I try to make you stop and you ignore me. You're going to have to develop some willpower eventually."

Ryan bites the head off the marshmallow Santa and sighs contentedly.

"If you keep eating, you're going to be too sick to your stomach to fuck Kaitlyn tonight when her parents leave for Reno."

Ryan looks at the half-eaten marshmallow Santa with raised eyebrows, then carefully wraps it back in its tinfoil wrapper and tucks it back into his stocking. "Good point," he says.

"Did you mention to my parents that you're going to Kaitlyn's tonight?"

"Um, no. Unlike you, I plan on keeping all of my sexual activities a secret from your parents. Forever."

"Okay. Good. Just, um. I thought I'd maybe ask if I could spent the night at your place."

Ryan looks at Spencer like he's gone crazy. "Dude, I know shit's tense here right now, but with the mood my dad's in right now, that's the last fucking place you want to be."

Spencer rolls his eyes. "I won't actually be staying at your place."

Ryan says, "Oh. Right. Sneaky."

Spencer waits until after lunch to ask. He and Jackie are clearing the table, and as he's picking up everyone's plates, he says, "Ryan and I were maybe just going to hang at his place tonight and watch movies. You guys don't mind if I stay over, right?"

"Of course not," says his father, at the same time as Spencer's mother casts a quick, nervous glance in Ryan's direction.

Spencer knows exactly what her look means, and he says, "Ew, gross, no. Seriously, Mom. Ryan? No."

Ryan snags one last crescent roll from the basket before Jackie takes it away. "Thanks a lot. Jerk. I'm totally hot."

"You're totally delusional," Spencer says.

"To be fair, I thought maybe he was your boyfriend, too," says Jackie.

Spencer's mother turns red. She says, "You had no right to involve your sisters in this."

"Oh, my God," says Crystal. "Everyone in the entire world is at least bi, Mom. You don't have to be so old fashioned all the time."

Ryan, who is a master at quickly slipping out of uncomfortable family situations right before they go thermonuclear, catches Spencer's eye and says, "Movies. Right. We'd better hurry before Blockbuster closes."

It's a stupid lie, but Spencer doesn't even care. They're both already packed, and they hurry upstairs for their bags and then downstairs and out the door while the mood is still tense, but no actual yelling or crying has yet begun.

"Does being happy that it's your family self-destructing instead of mine for once make me a bad person?" Ryan asks as he loads his duffle bag into his trunk.

"Yes," says Spencer. He sets Brendon's guitar gently in the back seat. "Only, no. Not really."

"And gross? Seriously? Your mom suspects we're fucking and all you can say is that the very thought of it is disgusting? You couldn't even, I don't know, let me down gently?"

Spencer laughs. "Put your ego away for half a second and think about what it would actually be like to suck my dick."

Ryan wrinkles his nose. "Gross. That's not fair. You know I have an overactive imagination."

Spencer opens his driver's side door and says, "Are we doing anything for New Year's?"

"There's a couple of parties," Ryan says. "I'll text you."

Spencer says, "Merry Christmas."

Ryan grins at him. "You, too. God. I am never going to be able to get that image out of my brain, you asshole."

Spencer laughs and slides into his car.

**********

Spencer's never been alone in Brendon's apartment before. He's not sure what he should do, so he just settles down on the couch and watches stupid sitcoms on the little black and white TV.

He'd wanted to buy Brendon's actual TV back from the pawnshop, too, but he'd only been able to afford one thing, and the guitar was more important.

After he gets sick of sitcoms, he plays around on his laptop for a while. He'd sent Brendon a text earlier to let him know he was there, but it takes a couple of hours for Brendon to respond. _everything ok?_

Spencer texts back, _y, just needed a break from the tension_.

 _u need me to come back?_

 _no, just watching tv, will prob sleep soon_.

 _call if you need anything, moron_

Spencer smiles at his phone and responds, _you're the moron_.

He looks at the guitar again and thinks maybe it's not enough of a present. He can't go out and buy anything; even though most of the shops on The Strip are open, he doesn't have any money. He spends an hour putting together a mix tape, then burns it onto a CD and digs through Brendon's junk drawer for a sharpie to label it with.

He sets the CD on top of the guitar case and he feels like it's still not enough, but there's honestly nothing else he can do, so he goes to bed.

He wakes up groggy and disoriented in the middle of the night, his alarm going off and someone knocking on the door. He fumbles for his phone and realizes it's not his alarm, someone's calling him, Brendon's calling him. He answers and says, "Is that you outside or is somebody trying to break in?"

"It's me."

"Kay," says Spencer, and he gets out of bed still wearing nothing but his boxers and a t-shirt and shuffles to the front door and opens it. Brendon bursts inside, and slams the door behind him, stalks into the kitchen and presses his hands onto the countertop and breathes.

"Bren?" Spencer asks, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.

Brendon shakes his head. His shoulders are all tense and bunched up by his ears.

Spencer shuffles over and hugs him from behind. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Brendon says, but he turns and wraps his arms around Spencer's waist.

Brendon's jacket is cold against Spencer's skin, but he holds Brendon close, anyway, strokes Brendon's cold hair, kisses his cold mouth. He wonders how much it would cost to get the heater in Brendon's car fixed, wonders if he could save up enough money for it by the next winter.

"Everything's exactly the same," Brendon tells him, pressing his forehead to Spencer's temple. "I tried to be different. I tried to be good and happy and I didn't argue and I didn't roll my eyes when they prayed and it doesn't even matter because everything turned out the same."

"I'm sorry," Spencer says. He unzips Brendon's jacket and takes it off, tugs at Brendon's sweater as he pulls him towards the bed. "Come sleep with me," he says.

"I'm not tired."

"I am. So just lay down with me, okay?"

Brendon looks like he might argue, but then he nods and pulls off his clothes and let's Spencer rub his skin warm.

They don't even do anything, just curl together and kiss a little bit, but mostly they just hold each other. Spencer rubs Brendon's back and strokes his hair and Brendon slides his hands beneath Spencer's t-shirt and they hold on.

Spencer tells Brendon about the weird dream he had the other night about living in an old house with a lot of cracks in the walls and he had to keep patching all the cracks or else the kittens could get outside. Brendon says that he always has the most frustrating sex dreams because he never actually gets laid in his dreams, he mostly just anticipates sex in his dreams and then never gets it because his own brain is a cockblock.

Spencer asks if Brendon knows any mime, tells him about his and Ryan's plans for Brendon to learn mime and make money doing it on the streets of Chicago.

"Does it have to be mime?" Brendon asks sleepily. "I can juggle. Can I juggle for money?"

"I suppose," Spencer tells him. He's quiet for a while, then he says, "Sometimes I think we should really do it. Really just go. Somewhere else. Somewhere not here."

Brendon nods, then pulls away. Spencer watches as he turns off all the lights in the apartment before climbing back into bed. "I think about leaving all the time," he admits in the darkness. "Would you really come with me?"

Spencer takes a deep breath. It's terrifying, but he says, "Yeah. And I think. I think Ryan might come, too."

The next time Spencer wakes, it's to the sound of Brendon tuning his guitar. He lifts his head and sees Brendon sitting on the floor in the dim light coming from the bathroom. "Hey," he whispers.

"I didn't even notice it before," Brendon tells him. "You got this for me?"

"It's your old one. I got it back from the pawn shop."

"I know. I'd know this guitar anywhere. Jesus, Spence. This is....it's amazing."

"Merry Christmas," Spencer tells him.

"My present's stupid," Brendon says. "It's nothing like this."

"You like it?"

"I love it. It's perfect. I wish. I didn't know what to get you, and I thought it was okay, but it's nothing like this." He sets the guitar back in its case and picks up a box wrapped in green paper with a red bow on top. "So, you know, if you hate it, you can just tell me."

Spencer sits up in bed and takes the box from Brendon's hands. He opens it to find the ugliest ceramic statue of a dog he's ever seen. "This. Is awesome," he says honestly.

"You don't hate it?"

"No. God, where did you find this?"

"At one of the antique stores Ryan dragged me to when he was trying to find something for his mom. He hates it, by the way."

"He would," says Spencer, turning the dog over in his hands. He thinks it's probably supposed to be a Boston Terrier. "He needs a name." He turns the dog back over and looks into its unevenly painted bug eyes. "Roscoe."

"Roscoe," says Brendon. "It's a good name for a good dog. You really don't hate it?"

"No. And honestly, what I really wanted to get you was a painting of a kitten in a fez, but I couldn't find one anywhere. The guitar was my second choice."

Brendon scritches behind Roscoe's porcelain ears and says, "It was a good choice." Then he takes Roscoe from Spencer's hands and sets him on the floor. "I'm totally going to give you an _I love my Christmas present_ blowjob right now, okay?"

Spencer grabs Brendon's t-shirt and uses it to pull him down for a kiss.

Once they're naked and making out, Spencer says, "Instead of a blow job, can I finger you?"

"Oh, my God, do you have to ask?"

"Well. I didn't know."

Brendon says, "I'm just going to admit that I'm a big fan of things in and around my ass, okay? Mostly my own fingers. I maybe used a candle, once, but I put a condom on it first, which doesn't make it any less embarrassing. I'm going to stop talking, now. How do you want me?"

"On your back," Spencer tells him. "Spread your legs." He grabs the pillows and uses them to prop up Brendon's hips, kneels between his legs and uses the lube to slick up his fingers.

Brendon closes his eyes as Spencer's fingers gently rub against his hole.

"Tell me when you're relaxed enough for me to put a finger inside," Spencer says.

"I'm relaxed."

"Brendon."

"I am. I swear. I do this all the time, Spence. You don't think it's weird that I do this to myself?"

Spencer sighs and shakes his head, says, "So fucking hot," before pressing one finger inside. "Do you usually move it or just hold it there, how do you like it?"

"Anything," Brendon tells him. He starts stroking his cock, closes his eyes and strokes it hard and Spencer puts his left hand on Brendon's forearm and says, "Don't bring yourself off."

Brendon says, "I'm not going to last long. I never do when I touch myself like this, and it's you, Spence. It's you doing it. I'm not going to last."

"Hold off as long as you can," Spencer tells him.

Brendon nods and rests his hands on his stomach, then moves them to the side and grips the sheets as Spencer works in another finger.

"Still okay?" Spencer asks.

"Really good."

Spencer nods and starts to slide his fingers out slowly, then press them back inside. He does it as slow as he can, getting a feel for Brendon's body, the way Brendon reacts. He presses deep inside and curves his fingers up and watches Brendon's cock jerk. "Don't," he says when Brendon lifts his hand.

Brendon presses his hands over his face and breathes. "You're killing me," he says. "I'm going to die."

"You're not going to die." It's amazing, watching his fingers disappear into Brendon's body, feeling the heat of him from the inside. He fucks into Brendon a little faster and is rewarded with soft, needy whimpers. He loves the sounds Brendon makes in bed.

He loves to watch the muscles in Brendon's stomach jump and tense, loves the sharp jut of his hipbones, the shallow bowl of his belly, the way his ribcage expands with each shaky breath.

Brendon reaches for his cock, but Spencer slaps it away before he can touch.

Brendon says, "I need to come."

Spencer twists his fingers and says, "You will."

"Now. Spence, I need to come now." He reaches for his cock again, and Spencer catches him by the wrist. Then Spencer slowly pulls his fingers out and wipes the lube on the sheets. Brendon whines high in his throat and rolls his hips.

"Put your hands over your head," Spencer tells him.

Brendon takes a deep, shaky breath and does as he's told.

Spencer sits back on his heels and looks around. The first thing he sees is the belt to Brendon's robe, so he gets up and yanks it free of the loops and comes back to bed. "I'm going to tie you up," he says.

Brendon's eyes are closed and he's breathing slow and deep. He nods.

Spencer ties Brendon's wrists together, then secures them to the bed frame. He gives the belt a tug and he's satisfied that it's going to hold. He kneels between Brendon's legs again and runs his hands up and down his thighs, over the sharp curve of his hips, up his sides.

Brendon laughs softly and twists away from Spencer's light touch. He opens his eyes and says, "Spencer, please." His cock is so hard, jutting away from his belly, the head swollen and dark purple-red. Spencer's never seen Brendon's cock look so hard.

"What do you want?" Spencer asks him, reaching for the lube.

"I want to come."

"You will. I'll make you come."

"Now," says Brendon, rocking his hips.

"In a little while. I won't make you wait long. Just a little while." He slicks his fingers up and slides two back into Brendon's body in one slow motion.

Brendon tips his head back and groans and rocks his hips, trying to fuck himself on Spencer's fingers.

"You look so good like this," Spencer tells him. "You're so beautiful." At any other time, Spencer'd be embarrassed to say something like that, but it's true, and he's too turned on to care.

He twists his fingers, spreads them open, stretching Brendon. When he looks down, he can see the dark pink of Brendon's ass between his fingers where he's holding Brendon open. He says, "Next time I want to film this, want you to be able to see how hot this looks, how hot it looks, the way your ass is stretched around my fingers."

Brendon pulls uselessly against the belt and he's moaning, soft and desperate, near continuously. He says, "More, please Spence, please, I need more."

Spencer works in a third finger, twists and spreads them, and then because he's pretty sure he can, he works in his pinky, too. "Is it okay? Are you all right?"

"So good," Brendon groans. "More, Spence, come on. I need to come. I need more."

"I've got all four fingers in you right now," Spencer tells him, twisting his wrist slowly one way, then the other.

Brendon rolls his hips and says, "Then give me your whole hand."

Spencer gasps and reaches to grip the base of his own cock, but it's too late, he's coming, shooting all the way up onto Brendon's stomach, over his cock. Spencer's shaking, and he wishes he had a camera, wishes he could have a picture of the way it looks with his finger's in Brendon's ass, his come glistening on Brendon's skin.

He leans down to lick the stripe of come off Brendon's cock, and Brendon's moan turns into a whine. "Please, please, please," he gasps.

Spencer takes the dark, swollen head of Brendon's cock into his mouth and slides his tongue over the slit and twists his fingers in Brendon's ass, pressing as deep as he can, pressing until his knuckles keep him from going any further, and Brendon shudders and his hips jerk up and his come coats Spencer's tongue.

When he pulls his fingers free, Brendon makes a soft, pained noise.

"Sorry," Spencer whispers, and he watches in awe as it takes a second or two for Brendon's body to close. He says, "Wow," and rubs his thumb over Brendon's shiny, stretched hole.

Brendon's lying boneless as Spencer crawls up to untie him. The knots are hard to undo, Brendon's tugging had pulled them tight, but Spencer eventually manages it. He asks, "Are you okay?"

Brendon grins up at him and says, "That was fucking awesome." Then he rolls onto his belly and reaches one hand back to touch himself, slides his fingers over his asshole and groans happily as he snuggles into the bed.

Spencer kisses the dip between Brendon's shoulder blades, then stretches out next to him. "Feel okay?"

"Sore," Brendon tells him. "And really sensitive. So good." He turns his head so he can look at Spencer's face. He twists his arm, and Spencer's pretty sure he's sliding a finger into himself. "Is this what it feels like to get fucked?"

"I don't know. Nobody's ever fingered me like that before."

"I'll do it for you," Brendon says sleepily, eyes closing. "But later. Later I'll do it to you, and you can fuck me. Want you to fuck me when I'm sore like this. Will I be able to feel it tomorrow? Will I still be sore?"

"Maybe," Spencer says. "I still am the next day sometimes."

Brendon says, "Awesome," and drifts off to sleep.

**********

Spencer's father is watching SportsCenter in his study when he gets home. The rest of the house is silent. "Where is everybody?"

"Your mother took the girls to Colorado Springs," his father tells him.

Spencer's stomach drops. "For good?"

"No. Just for the week. They'll be back before school starts on the third."

Spencer says, "I've fucked everything up, haven't I?"

"No."

"I ruined Christmas."

His father smiles wryly. "I guess you're old enough to know, now, that Christmas usually sucks. You didn't ruin anything, Spence."

"If I hadn't told her, then things would have been fine. I wish I could take it back. I wish I could go back in time and just say nothing."

"And then you'd still be hiding a part of yourself from us."

"Would that be so bad?"

His father nods. "Yeah. It would be. Your mom and I talked for a long time last night before she left. She loves you, Spencer, but she's terrified because she thinks this means a whole bunch of things that, well, I don't know. I don't think she's right, but I suppose we should talk about it."

Spencer says, "Oh, God."

"She told me about the video she found."

"Oh, God."

"I tried to tell her that boys are just curious, and if there is porn, a teenage boy will find it and watch it, just. Hell. She said it was pretty disturbing."

Spencer wants to die. Spencer wants to walk out into traffic and just get hit by a car and die.

"I guess I just want to make sure you're not involved in anything unsafe."

"I'm not," Spencer says. "It was just a video. It was," he sighs. "It was pretty dirty, but not, like. That's not, like, my lifestyle or anything."

"Okay. Are you using any drugs?"

"Jesus, Dad. No. You know that."

"I do, but now I can say that I asked and got an honest answer. How long have you and Brendon been dating?"

"The twins told you?"

"No. Figured that one out on my own."

"Not long. Just, like, a month. I kind of always hoped that," he breaks off and feels himself blushing. It's so weird to be talking to his dad about this. "I liked him a lot for a long time, but nothing happened until a month ago. He's never dated a guy before."

"And you have?"

Spencer nods.

"Did anybody hurt you? Anybody talk you into this?"

"That's not how it works," Spencer snaps.

"I know. But I have to ask."

"It's so stupid," Spencer tells him. "Like, some creepy molester does something fucked up to me and I go, hey, why don't I go do _more_ of that terrible shit that just happened? That makes no fucking sense. And, like, how the hell can you talk somebody into being gay? I mean, what would you do if some hot guy slid up to you and was like, 'Hey, Jeff, you wanna try something? It's super fun.' You wouldn't, like, leave Mom and go be gay just because some guy had a really convincing argument."

His father laughs. "Okay. You're a good kid, Spence. You know we love you."

"I know _you_ do."

"Your mom does, too. And she's sorry she hurt you."

Spencer sighs.

"She is. And when she gets back, things will be different."

"I was thinking maybe I'd just stay with Brendon for a while."

His dad shakes his head. "No."

"He's alone, Dad. It's the holidays, and he tried to make things work with his family, but he couldn't, and he's all alone."

"Then he can stay here. But you're not leaving. This is your home, and this is where you'll stay."

Spencer says, "Okay," but he already knows he's going to go.

He knows it even before Ryan finds out that Kaitlyn's been cheating on him. He knows it even before Brendon drops out in February because he's too tired to go to school and work full time and practice every night with the band, and something has to give. He knows it even before Ryan's father tells him he has to either go back to UNLV or find someplace else to live, before they play their first terrible but exhilarating show at The Alley, before Spencer's mother tells him she'll buy him a new laptop, a new drum kit, anything he wants if he'll just get a girlfriend and try his hardest to be straight.

He's known for a long time that he's leaving, so it doesn't feel like anything monumental on the quiet Tuesday morning in March when they go. Ryan and Brendon have sold their cars, and they've got a beat-up trailer and a van that stinks of cat piss, and Spencer leaves that morning for school, then drives around until he can go back home, his parents at work, his sisters at school. He changes out of his uniform and hangs it back up in his closet, changes into jeans and a t-shirt, tugs the packed suitcase out from underneath his bed and leaves a note on his pillow.

He hadn't known what to write, so the note just says, _I'm sorry, but I have to leave. There's no music scene in Vegas, and if we want to make it, we need to go somewhere else. I love you, and I'll call you when I can._ He doesn't sign his name. His parents will know who the note is from.

The old, white van pulls up in front of his house a little before nine. Spencer hefts up his suitcase and locks the front door behind him and doesn't let himself look back. Ryan's in the back, already curled up with a book, Roscoe seat belted in next to him. Brendon's driving, and after Spencer throws his suitcase into the back, he crawls into the passenger seat and leans across for a kiss.

"We can stay," Brendon says softly. "Or you can stay and come join us after you graduate. Just because we're dropouts doesn't mean you have to be, too."

Spencer runs his fingers through Brendon's hair and says, "Let's go."

**********

Epilogue

"Jon Walker," Brendon says, jumping up onto Jon's back. "Jon Walker, you are my favorite boss and the best bass player in the entire world."

"Whoa, hey," says Jon, shrugging him off. "Save that semi for Spencer, okay?"

Brendon laughs and grins at Spencer. He always gets turned on when they play shows, always ends the night soaked in sweat and half hard and grinning so huge he can't stop. He turns his smile back onto Jon. "Tell me I'm your favorite barista. You're my favorite shift, tell me I'm your favorite barista."

"I don't know," says Jon. "You're still pretty green. I think I like Hannah the best."

"Hannah can't even make decent foam!" Brendon cries. "Hannah's not your lead singer."

"Well, you're my favorite lead singer," Jon tells him.

Brendon seems satisfied with that, then squats down and tugs on the back of his jeans and waddles around the green room shouting, "Everybody look at my crack! I've got the best crack in Chicago!"

Spencer laughs and holds his hand out to pull Brendon to his feet. "You're traumatizing Ryan."

"I am not. Ryan, am I traumatizing you?"

"A little bit," Ryan says dryly. He's not even sweating. The lights had been blistering hot and there had been so many bodies packed into the club that Spencer had felt like he'd been breathing desert air, and Ryan's barely got three droplets of sweat on his brow.

Spencer hears somebody saying, "Jesus, the security in this place is terrible, they just let anybody backstage," but he's not really paying attention. He's too busy looking at Brendon and his flushed cheeks and the way the sweat makes his hair stick to his forehead. He looks the way he does when Spencer fucks him, and Spencer's thinking about taking Brendon back to their apartment and fucking him hard on their mattress on the floor and making him moan and sweat for hours. They're going to head out to man the merch table soon, and they've still got to pack up all their gear, but Spencer's going to fuck Brendon that night no matter how long it takes them to get back home.

Ryan slaps at Spencer's arm, and Spencer blushes and hopes Ryan's not swatting at him because he can tell what Spencer's thinking.

"Jesus," says Jon. "I'm not a horse. People can't just fucking ride me all night."

Spencer grins and looks over and he's about to make a joke when he sees why Ryan's been batting at his arm, why Brendon's gone completely still. He knows the guy climbing up onto Jon's back for a piggyback ride. Well, he doesn't know him, not really. He's never met the man before in his life, but he knows who he is.

"Holy shit," Ryan whispers.

Spencer says, "Do you think he was in the audience?"

"Holy shit," Ryan says again.

"Johnny Walker," says Pete Wentz, giving Jon's thigh a couple of swats like he's a horse. "Johnny Walker, I am so pissed at you right now."

"Uh-huh," says Jon, rolling his eyes. He seems totally unfazed by the fact that Pete fucking Wentz is trying to climb up onto his shoulders. He shakes Pete off and laughs when Pete hits the floor.

Spencer takes a nervous breath, but then Pete laughs, too, a ridiculous donkey laugh that cuts through Spencer's tension. He thinks, _Nobody with a laugh like that can actually be as cool as he pretends to be._

Then Pete's right up in their space, shaking Spencer's hand, then Brendon's, saying, "Hey, little dudes, you fucking killed tonight. JWalk, why didn't you send me any of your demos?"

Jon says, "I've only been playing with them for a little while."

"You sent your demos to Tom, who played them for Bill, who played them for me. You're making me do a lot of fucking work, here, getting on a plane, coming back to my hometown to see all my family and friends. It's like a vacation, only I get to do really fun stuff, too."

Spencer looks over at Brendon, who seems just as confused as he is.

Then Pete Wentz grins at the four of them and rubs his hands together briskly. "Okay," he says, "show of hands. Who here wants a record contract?"


End file.
